Bautista should cash in on breakout year

It would be hard to blame Jose Bautista for looking back on the early days of his major league career with a wistful eye and wonder where he might have picked up just a handful more time in the majors.

In 2005, he was called up in mid September by the Pirates even though teams can expand their rosters to 40 men at the beginning of the month. He failed to make Pittsburgh’s big league roster out of spring training in 2006 but was called up for good in early May. He made a brief sojourn to the minors in August 2008 before being traded to Toronto.

As it stands, the 30-year-old Dominican is about a week shy of his six years of major league service and the full free agent status that goes with it. He is a week shy of having been a one of the most intriguing free agents off this off-season, with all the riches that might have come to a player who exploded for 54 home runs in 2010.

Instead, Bautista and his agent Bean Stringfellow are in the final days of pre-arbitration negotiation with the Toronto Blue Jays. And the Blue Jays’ decision on what to do with Bautista is equally fascinating.

Even those buried in the prep work for their own arbitration cases are popping their heads up to see what is happening with Bautista and the Blue Jays.

“Obviously the home run total and the fact that it was such a monster breakout year, there’s no history of it,” one assistant general manager said. “Because of his service level and his contribution, it’s a very unique case that really isn’t tied to anybody else.”

One agent said: “There’s no question that it’s a very interesting case and I’m sure it’s being very closely monitored by everybody involved that it could affect.”

Arbitration is all about finding comparables, but there is not much that is similar to the season Bautista just had. He also hit .260, but with a .995 on-base plus slugging percentage. He had 124 runs batted in and walked 100 times. He was fourth in the AL MVP voting and earned a Silver Slugger award.

Nobody has ever reached these numbers after a previous career-high of just 16 home runs, 63 runs batted in and a pre-2010 career batting average of .238.

Bautista’s jump of 39 home runs in one year is the most by any non-rookie.

Of the 41 other men to reach 50 home runs in a season, all had reached 20 homers at least once in their careers before cracking that magic plateau.

Among those players, only Brady Anderson — the outlier of all outliers for his 50-homer season in 1996 — had a career-high of fewer than 28 before reaching 50.

“The fewer comparison, the more wide open it makes the situation in terms of what can happen,” said the agent. “Bautista’s situation, you’re looking at maybe there’s only four or five guys that you could legitimately consider comparable, and you’ve just got to work with what you have.”

Stringfellow and Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos are the two men charged with working within the limitations of limited information.

“I think the numbers speak for themselves,” said Anthopoulos, who has nine arbitration filings on his plate, the most in the majors. “He had a very good year for us.”

The GM would not say much beyond that. Stringfellow did not return request for comment.

It is not surprising both sides are keeping quiet as there are three options. The sides could come to terms on a one-year year deal or a multi-year deal. Or they could be willing to wait for Tuesday’s noon deadline and take the case to arbitration. In that case, no one would want to tip their hand now.

Last year, Anthopoulos enacted a policy that once the two sides exchange numbers, they will go to a hearing. There will be no more negotiating on a deal after Tuesday.

Anyone who talks about the process agrees that while contributions to a club and defence are talked about, arbitration decisions are heavily weighted to offensive numbers.

Consistency is also important but recent performance — the “platform year” in the parlance of baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement — is of far greater relevance for a player with as much service time as Bautista.

“What have you done for me lately,” said the agent. “It’s a huge advantage in his favour.”

One man willing to go on the record about the case is Michael Vlessides, who is in his 20th year consulting to big league teams preparing for arbitration cases.

The Canmore, Alta., resident — who also has written two books with Survivorman Les Stroud — said the three-person arbitration panels of non-baseball experts have not embraced the more esoteric Sabrmetrics calculations such as Value Over Replacement Player and Win Shares.

The much simpler numbers tend to resonate the most, which bodes well for Bautista.

“It’s sex appeal, in terms of how sexy statistics can get,” Vlessides said. “Home runs are the sexiest statistic that you can put on the table and this guy had 54 of them.”

Vlessides said unless Bautista brings in a totally off-the-wall salary figure, simply coming off a great year is a very good thing for him.

“It’s funny, there’s a lot of mystique around the salary arbitration process because there’s not a lot of people involved in it,” he said. “But it’s still very visceral and simplistic and clubs tend to lose cases where players have had good seasons and the Blue Jays know that.”

Vlessides doubts Toronto will go to a hearing with Bautista, especially if a long-term deal is a possibility.

“Arbitration doesn’t do anything for goodwill,” he said. “It’s an ugly process.”

As for predictions, Vlessides said that while Bautista’s 2010 season is different than most, it is likely parallels will be found in Jorge Cantu and Dan Uggla.

Both recently reached contracts with similar levels of experience and production to Bautista entering 2011.

Cantu, the infielder who finished 2010 with the AL champion Texas Rangers, made US$6-million after hitting .289 with 16 home runs and 100 RBIs in 2009.

Uggla’s recent multi-year deal with Atlanta works out to an average yearly value of about US$9.1-million for a player who never approached Bautista’s heights in 2010, but has hit at least 27 home runs in each of his five seasons.

Those two are likely to form the range in which Bautista will fall.

“One thing we look for in arbitration is length and consistency,” Vlessides said. “Bautista, frankly, just doesn’t have that. A guy like Cantu might have a lot of the same career statistics like Bautista, but once you factor in Bautista’s monster year, it’s going to push him well north of a guy like Cantu.

“He’ll be getting at least US$7-million this year and then where it goes from there depends on the negotiations between the two parties,” he added. “My guess is Bautista is worth about US$7.5-million.”

Bautista will be joined in filing for arbitration by Brandon Morrow, Jesse Litsch, Yunel Escobar, Rajai Davis, Jason Frasor, Shawn Camp, Casey Janssen and Carlos Villanueva. The Blue Jays have not gone to an arbitration hearing since 1997.